Cancer Treatment Op-Ed

Here's a recent Op-Ed assignment for the Boston Globe. I worked with Art Director Heather Hopp-Bruce on this one. Cancer is hard to define in visual terms, so I focused on the prevention side of the argument, with a human figure removing symbols of the hazards and risks that we encounter in modern life. It's a big, dark, ominous-looking shape, but the topic is weighty and in a way, frightening.

Medical Op-Ed

Every week, it seems, biopharmaceutical companies announce new breakthroughs in “personalized medicine” – customized health care where the goal is to tailor drug therapies to individuals. Competition between gene sequencing businesses to catapult us into the age of the $1000 genome drives much of the hoopla. Gene-based companion diagnostics, for cancer drugs especially, promise to help doctors discern which patients are likeliest to benefit from which treatments, curtailing the need for mix-and-match, trial-and-error, one-size-fits-all chemotherapies.

But what if every new drug – however much more effective than current treatments – works only for smaller and smaller numbers of patients? And what happens to those minimally beneficial but mega-profitable blockbusters that now dominate cancer treatment when it becomes clearer that only small percentages of the people taking them will truly benefit, people who now can be identified prospectively?

The Cure for Some Could Cost Us All - by Barry Werth

Interesting topic - I was given the chance to work with a half-page layout by art director Heather Hopp-Bruce for the Boston Globe Op-Ed page.. It's a complicated, modern issue, tied to human genomes, customization, medicine and economics. It was a challenge to dive in and cover the topic in a nuanced manner. Miracle cure or another burdensome expense for consumers to carry? Here is a detail:

Here is the page layout:

 I worked on a number of concepts, here some of my other sketches: